THE  SOUTH 
VINDICA  TED 


Hoi 


THE  FLO^^KS  COLLECTION 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 

REUNION  ADDRESS  BY  JUDGE  JOHN  H.  ROGERS, 
OF  ARKANSAS. 


The  Annual  Aiklit for  the  Convention  of  United  Confederate  Veterans 
at  New  ( )rlfan>.  -May.  V»-\--.  liaving  been  assigned  to  the  Hon.  John  H.  Rogers, 
of  Fort  Smith,  Ark.,  he  responded  and  so  pleased  the  assembly  that  a  mo- 
tion was  adopted,  amid  great  enthusiasm,  that  it  be  printed  and  sent  to  all 
Camps  in  the  org-anization.  and  to  all  colleges  and  imiversities  in  the  coun- 
tr}'.  Mr.  S.  A.  Cunnimrham .  cditMr  nf  th.'  C < )Nfki>kk.ate  Yetehax.  official 
organ  of  the  Association.  nti\Tr(i  i>i  -uiiplx  ii  s.n:uuitousl3-.  and  hi- ]>r.i]Misi- 
tion  was  accepted  with  fxpi-i'--i  n-  <<{  u-ra  Jiiulc.  Some  thousands  ot  extra 
copies  of  the  Veteran  were  i)rinted  and  sd  tlislributed,  but  the  wide-sjjread 
demand  for  other  copies  induced  this  pamphlet  edition.  Copies  will  be  mailed 
to  an}-  address  at  5  cents  each.  50  cents  per  dozen.  Sample  copies  of  the 
Veter.ax  are  sent  free.      Address  S.  A.  Cuxnixgham.  Nashville.  Tenn. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  > 

Archive 

in  2014 

https://archive.org/details/southvindicated01roge 


THE  FLOWERS  COLLEOTION 


■^/^  xfc^         ■"•'^        ■<•/-  ■<*/^  '•/^  >^        '^/^  •"•^ 


ZI^^  Soiithi  %)indicated. 


Mr.  Commander,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  and  Fellow-Com- 
rades: No  man  could  be  insensible  of  so  great  a  privilege  and 
honor  as  this  occasion  confers  on  me.  This  uncounted  mul- 
titude findi  itself  assembled  in  the  greatest  of  all  Southern 
cities.  Every  inch  of  its  soil  has  been  consecrated  by  the 
blood  of  heroes  and  patriots.  Here,  in  Jackson  Square, 
fragrant  v,'ith  the  magnolia,  jasmine,  and  rose,  adorned  with 
evergreens,  shrubbery,  and  Howering  plants,  stands,  and 
should  forever  stand,  Mill's  equestrian  statue  of  the  Sage 
of  the  Hermitage,  clustering  around  whose  name  and  fame, 
entwined  with  the  early  fortunes  of  this  beautiful  metrop- 
olis, are  holy  memories  more  labtmg  than  marble  and  brass; 
preserving  forever  the  noblest  examples  of  civic  and  mili- 
tary achievements,  and  giving  inspiration,  hope,  and  courage 
to  the  countless  millions  of  his  countrymen.  Why  are  we 
here? 

No  fanatical  religious  crusade  prompted  this  immense 
concourse.  Here  are  to  be  found  all  creeds  and  faiths  and 
beliefs,  in  perfect  peace  with  each  other,  freed  from  all  an- 
tagonisms to  excite  the  passions  of  men.  In  yonder  sky 
are  no  angry  clouds  of  pestilence  or  war;  no  impending 
danger  threatens  our  land,  demanding  consultation  and 
means  of  protection  from  enemies  within  or  without.  We 
are  at  peace  at  home  and  abroad.  Neither  are  we  weary 
pilgrims  to  a  holy  Mecca,  seeking  absolution  of  our  sins, 
nor  are  we  aspirants  for  social  or  political  preferment.  This 
is  no  vast  political  convention  or  mass  meeting,  assembled 
for  purposes  of  considering  grave  matters  of  state  or  seek- 
ing to  confer  honors  on  favorite  sons.  Nay,  nay,  none  of 
these.    What  is  it  that  has  brought  us  together? 

This  great  assembly  hall,  festooned  with  bunting  and  flags, 
emblems  cf  liberty  and  powder;  its  amphitheater  filled  with 


4 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


the  brave  manhood  and  lovely  womanhood  of  the  South; 
these  venerable  men,  the  survivors  of  the  tremendous  con- 
flict of  the  sixties — all  these  things  tell  of  a  deep,  underlying 
cause.  This  great  sea  of  upturned  faces,  glowing  with  life, 
intelligence,  and  sympathy — if  not  with  joy  unmingled  with 
sorrow — proclaim  that  the  purpose  of  our  assembling  has 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  our  hearts.  We  need  not  re- 
press the  emotions  by  which  we  are  agitated.  Whenever  and 
wherever  these  reunions  occur,  we  are  standing  amid  the  sep- 
ulchers  of  our  dead.  Every  foot  of  our  beloved  Southland 
is  distinguished  by  their  courage,  their  sublime  fortitude, 
their  self-denial,  their  unwavering  devotion  and  patriotism, 
and  sanctified  by  the  shedding  of  their  blood.  Thirty-eight 
years  separate  us  from  the  events  of  which  I  shall  speak, 
"Time  and  nature  have  had  their  course"'  in  diminishing  the 
numbers  of  those  who  surrendered  at  the  close  of  the  great 
"Civil  War,"  but  neither  time  nor  nature  can  relieve  those  who 
survive  of  the  duties  they  owe  to  the  memory  of  our  un- 
recorded dead,  to  our  posterity,  to  our  beloved  Southland, 
and  to  ourselves.  We  are  here  to-day  to  discharge,  as  we 
may,  those  duties,  and  to  renew  old  friendships,  forged  in 
the  white  heat  of  common  sufiferings,  and  hallowed  and  sanc- 
tified by  the  conscious  conviction  that  in  the  hour  of  trial 
and  peril  we  were  true  to  the  Constitution  as  it  was  framed 
and  handed  down  to  us  by  Washington  and  his  compatriots. 

We  are  here  also  to  pay  tribute  to  that  noble  band  of 
Southern  women,  the  mothers  and  daughters  of  the  Confed- 
eracy, to  whom  the  great  Southern  chieftain  dedicated  his 
book,  "The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederacy,"  in  words 
ever  to  be  remembered: 

"To  the  women  of  the  Confederacy,  whose  pious  minis- 
trations to  our  wounded  soldiers  soothed  the  last  hours  of 
those  who  died  far  from  the  object  of  their  love; 

"Whose  domestic  labors  contributed  much  to  supply  the 
wants  of  cur  defenders  in  the  field; 

"Whose  zealous  faith  in  our  cause  shone  a  guiding  star 
undimmed  by  the  darkest  clouds  of  war; 

"Whose  fortitude  sustained  them  under  all  the  privations 
to  which  they  were  subjected; 


THE  SOUTH  \TXDICATEL). 


"Whose  floral  tribute  annually  expresses  their  untiring 
love  and  reverence  for  our  sacred  dead; 

"And  whose  patriotism  will  teach  their  children  to  emu- 
late the  deeds  of  our  revolutionary  sires." 

All  hail  to  these  splendid  women,  nobly  represented  here 
this  day  by  the  Confederated  Southern  Memorial  Association, 
which  took  upon  itself,  when  peace  came,  to  care  for  our  dead 
and  erect  monuments  to  their  memory.  Welcome,  welcome  to 
them  and  to  the  representatives  of  all  other  true  organizations 
which  are  contributing  toward  the  works  of  love  in  which  we 
all  feel  the  deepest  concern. 

A  gifted  and  distinguished  son  of  Alabama,  the  author, 
the  statesman,  the  scholar,  and  the  man  of  God,  the  late 
Dr.  Curry,  has  written  two  books,  one  entitled  ''The  South- 
ern States  of  the  American  Union,"  and  the  other,  "The  Civil 
History  of  the  Confederate  States."  Both  should  be  care- 
fully read  and  studied  by  every  intelligent  man  and  woman, 
North  and  South,  wha  wishes  to  know  the  truth  and  where 
to  find  it,  and  to  do  justice  to  the  South.  In  the  former 
is  found  this  passage: 

"The  establishment  of  truth  is  never  wrong.  History,  as 
written,  if  accepted  as  true,  will  consign  the  South  to  in- 
famy. If  she  were  guilty  of  rebellion  or  treason,  if  she 
adopted  or  clung  to  barbarisms,  essential  sins,  and  immor- 
alities, then  her  people  will  be  clothed,  as  it  were,  with  the 
fabled  shire  of  Nessus,  fatal  to  honor,  to  energy,  to  noble 
development,  to  true  life." 

The  same  author  uses  this  striking  language: 

"That  the  conquerors  should  make  laws  for  the  conquered 
seems  a  political,  as  it  is  the  ordinary,  consequence  of  the 
conquest.  It  is  not  so  obvious,  nor  so  logical,  that  they 
should  make  history." 

In  another  passage  he  says: 

"One  of  the  most  singular  illustrations  ever  presented  of 
the  power  of  literature  to  conceal  and  pervert  truth,  to 
modify  and  falsify  history,  to  transfer  odium  from  the  guilty 
to  the  innocent,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  reproach  of 
disunion  has  been  slipped  from  the  shoulders  of  the  North 
to  those  cf  the  South." 


6 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


No  thoughtful  man  can  pass  lightly  over  such  statements. 
If  true,  they  are  a  warning  to  us  that  if  we  value  our  good 
names,  our  parts  had  in  the  tragic  struggle  of  the  sixties; 
if  we  would  not  have  our  very  children  in  the  near  future, 
if  not  ashamed  and  apologizing  for  us,  then  unable  to  defend 
us,  we  must  not  be  idle  in  preserving,  recording,  and  teach- 
ing the  real  facts  upon  which  the  righteousness  of  our  ac- 
tions must  depend. 

I  find  no  fault  with  the  New  England  States,  that  from 
the  moment  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  touched  foot  on  Plymouth 
Rock  they  began  and  have  continued  day  by  day  to  record 
their  own  deeds;  but  it  cannot  be  truthfully  said  that  their 
writers  and  statesmen  have  always  been  as  just  and  faithful 
in  their  interpretation  and  treatment  of  the  actions  of  others 
as  they  have  been  diligent  in  recording  their  own  deeds,  and 
afterwards  in  escaping  their  responsibility  and  logical  con- 
sequences. It  is  a  misfortune  to  the  South  that  her  sons, 
if  not  indifferent,  then  carelessly  neglected  to  preserve  for 
the  historian  like  records. 

"The  true  record  of  the  South,  if  it  can  be  related  with 
historic  accuracy,  is  rich  in  patriotism,  in  intellectual  force, 
in  civic  and  military  achievements,  in  heroism,  in  honorable 
and  sagacious  statesmanship,  of  a  proper  share  of  which  no 
American  can  aft'ord  to  deprive  himself.  So  much  genius 
in  legislation,  in  administration,  in  jurisprudence,  in  war, 
such  great  capacities,  should  expel  partisan  and  sectional 
prejudices." 

Let  us  see  where  the  seeds  of  disunion  were  first  sown — 
where  and  when  it  was  first  agitated,  and  under  what  cir- 
cumstances it  was  threatened.  If  to  the  doctrine  of  disunion 
or  secession  odium  should  attach,  then  simple  justice  de- 
mands that  the  responsibility  be  fixed  and  that  the  guilty 
be  not  permitted  to  escape  their  proper  place  in  history. 
If  no  odium  could  justly  attach,  no  one  need  feel  any  dread 
if  the  truth  is  made  clear.  In  no  sectional,  party,  or  re- 
sentful spirit  is  the  inquiry  made.  It  is  due  to  us,  to  the 
truth,  to  cur  children,  and  to  the  statesmen  and  leaders  of 
political  thought  in  the  old  South,  that  the  inquiry  be  made; 
it  is  due  to  the  dead  we  this  day  honor. 


THE  SOUTH  \INDICATED. 


7 


For  much  of  what  I  shall  say  on  this  subject,  I  am  in- 
debted to  Dr.  Curry's  two  books,  already  mentioned. 

The  South  is  reproached  for  disunion — secession!  It  is 
the  basis  for  the  charge  of  treason;  of  disrupting  the  Union; 
of  violating  the  Constitution;  of  rebellion;  of  making  war 
on  the  United  States.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there 
is  a  wide  difference  between  secession  and  rebellion.  The 
South  made  no  war  on  the  States  remaining  in  the  Uaion. 
Secession  meant  disunion  so  far  as  the  seceding  States  were 
concerned,  but  it  meant  neither  war  nor  rebellion.  It  meant 
a  Union  intact  sc  far  as  all  the  States  were  concerned  which 
did  not  secede,  and  a  Union,  too,  under  the  Constitution. 
As  the  States  entered  the  Union,  each  under  acts  of  ratifi- 
cation of  its  own,  so  secession  meant  the  resumption  by  each 
State  of  its  delegated  powers,  by  repealing  the  acts  under 
which  each  seceding  State  entered  the  compact;  but  the  re- 
peal of  such  acts  did  not  and  could  not  affect  the  acts  by 
which  the  remaining  States  entered  into  the  Confederacy. 
The  States  of  North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  did  not 
ratify  the  Constitution  until  long  after  Washington's  ad- 
ministration began,  and  of  course  were  not  members  of 
the  Union.  But  the  Union  existed  nevertheless,  and  existed 
under  the  Constitution,  as  much  as  it  did  after  these  States 
became  members.  So  when  the  Confederate  States  seceded 
from  the  Union,  the  States  remaining  under  the  compact 
were  as  much  a  Union  under  the  Constitution  as  before. 

The  whole  history  of  secession  shows  conclusively  that  in 
seceding  the  South  had  no  Intention  of  assailing  their  for- 
mer confederates.  To  their  credit,  every  step  taken  in  the 
matter  of  secession,  in  view  of  the  deep  feeling  and  intense 
excitement,  was  marvelously  conservative,  marked  with 
statesmanlike  conduct  and  a  decent  regard  for  the  United 
States.  Its  peace  commissions,  its  diplomacy,  its  unpre- 
paredness  for  war,  all  make  clear  to  those  who  wish  to 
know  that  the  South  sought  a  peaceful  withdrawal  from  the 
Union,  leaving  the  remaining  States  unharmed  and  undis- 
turbed. 

Had  a  State,  under  the  Constitution  as  interpreted  and 
understood  for  fifty  years  after  its  adoption,  the  right,  for  any 


8 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


reason,  to  withdraw  from  the  Union?  It  must  be  admitted 
that  if  such  right  ever  existed  it  continued  up  to  the  "Civil 
War,"  for  the  Constitution  had  never  been  changed  in  that 
regard.  It  must  also  be  admitted  that  if,  for  any  reason,  a 
State  had  the  right  to  withdraw  of  necessity  it  had  the  sole 
right  to  determine  when  the  reasons  were  sufficient;  and  it 
must  also  be  remembered  that  up  to  1861  the  question  was 
unsettled,  since  for  its  determination  no  tribunal  had 
ever  been  created,  nor  was  any  such  power  confided  by  the 
terms  of  the  Constitution  to  the  United  States.  These  state- 
ments, it  IS  confidently  asserted,  are  historically  axiomatic. 

I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  two  authorities.  Mr.  Madi- 
son has  been  justly  called  the  "Father  of  the  Constitution." 
If  any  men  of  his  day  had  a  right  to  love  the  Union,  they  were 
Washington  and  Madison.  Both  of  them  contributed,  above 
all  cithers,  to  its  existence  and  early  maintenance;  both  of 
them  deprecated  its  destruction,  frowned  upon  all  efiforts  for 
disunion  or  secession,  and  to  the  last  days  of  their  lives  were 
its  ardent  and  devoted  friends.  Mr.  Madison,  than  whom  no 
purer  and  nobler  statesman  this  country  has  produced,  said : 

"Where  resort  can  be  had  to  no  tribunal  superior  to  the 
authority  of  the  parties,  the  parties  themselves  must  be  the 
rightful  judges,  in  the  last  resort,  whether  the  bargain  made 
has  been  pursued  or  violated.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  was  formed  by  the  sanction  of  the  States, 
given  by  each  in  its  sovereign  capacity.  The  States,  then, 
being  parties  to  the  constitutional  compact  and  in  their  sov- 
ereign capacity,  it  follows  of  necessity  that  there  can  be  no 
tribunal  above  their  authority  to  decide,  in  the  last  resort, 
whether  the  compact  made  by  them  be  violated,  and  con- 
sequently that,  as  the  parties  to  it,  they  must  themselves 
decide,  in  the  last  resort,  such  questions  as  may  be  of  suf- 
ficient magnitude  to  require  their  interposition." 

"-An  assemblage  of  citizens  of  Boston  in  Fanueil  Hall  in 
1809  state,  in  a  celebrated  memorial,  that  they  looked  only 
to  the  State  Legislatures,  who  were  competent  to  devise 
relief  against  the  unconstitutional  acts  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment. "That  your  power  is  adequate  to  that  object  is 
evident  from  the  organization  of  the  Confederacy." 


THE  SOUTH  MXDICATED. 


9 


Here  is  distinctively  recognized  the  doctrine  that  each 
sovereign  State  has  the  right  to  judge  alone  of  its  own  com- 
pacts and  agreements.  This  must,  of  necessity,  be  true  un- 
less the  right  to  interpret  the  compact  or  agreement  has 
been  waived,  or  the  power  conferred  upon  another.  This 
language  of  Madison  is  buttressed  by  the  acts  of  ratification 
of  the  Constitution  by  some  of  the  States.  Virginia  said 
in  her  ratification  act: 

"The  delegates  do,  in  the  name  of  Virginia,  declare  and 
make  known  that  the  powers  granted  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, being  derived  from  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
may  be  resumed  by  them  whensoever  the  same  shall  be 
perverted  to  their  injury  or  oppression,  and  that  every 
power  not  granted  thereby  remains  w^th  them  and  at  their 
will." 

New  York  was  even  more  specific,  and  Maryland  and  other 
States  showed  equal  concern  and  jealousy  in  safeguarding 
the  sovereignty  of  the  States. 

In  the  prior  history  of  the  country  repeated  instances 
are  found  of  the  assertion  of  tlie  right  of  secession  and  of 
a  purpose  entertained  at  various  times  to  put  it  into  execu- 
tion. Notably  is  this  true  of  Massachusetts — indeed,  of  all 
New  England.  In  1786,  when  the  States  were  bound  by  the 
Articles  of  Confederation,  we  are  told  the  situation  was 
"dangerous  in  the  extreme."  "The  agitation  in  Massachu- 
setts was  great,  and  it  was  declared  that  if  Jay's  negotia- 
tions, closing  the  Mississippi  for  twenty  years,  could  not  be 
adopted  it  was  high  time  for  the  New  England  States  to 
recede  from  the  Union  and  form  a  Confederation  by  them- 
selves." 

Plumer  traces  secession  movements  in  1792  and  1794,  and 
says:  "All  dissatisfied  with  the  measures  of  the  government 
looked  to  a  separation  of  the  States  as  a  remedy  for  op- 
pressive grievance." 

In  1794  Fisher  Ames  said:  "The  spirit  of  insurrection  has 
tainted  a  vast  extent  of  country  besides  Pennsylvania." 

In  1796  Gov.  Wolcott,  of  Connecticut,  said:  "I  sincerely 
declare  that  I  wish  the  Northern  States  would  separate  from 


10 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


the  Southern  the  moment  that  event  [the  election  of  Jef- 
ferson] shall  take  place." 

Horatio  Seymour,  on  October  8,  1880,  in  a  public  address 
in  New  York  City,  thus  spoke:  "The  first  threat  of  disunion 
was  uttered  upon  the  floor  of  Congress  by  Josiah  Quincy, 
one  of  the  most  able  and  distinguished  sons  of  Massachu- 
setts. At  an  early  day  Mr.  Hamilton,  with  all  his  distrust 
of  the  Constitution,  sent  word  to  the  citizens  of  Boston  to 
stop  their  threats  of  disunion  and  let  the  government  stand 
as  long  as  it  would.  When  our  country  was  engaged  with 
the  superior  power,  population,  and  resources  of  Great 
Britain,  when  its  armies  were  upon  our  soil,  when  the  walls 
of  its  capitol  were  blackened  and  marred  by  the  fires  kindled 
by  our  foes,  and  our  Union  was  threatened  with  disasters, 
the  leading  officials  and  citizens  of  New  England  threatened 
resistance  to  the  military  measures  of  the  administration. 
This  was  the  language  held  by  a  convention  of  delegates 
appointed  by  the  Legislatures  of  three  New  England  States  and 
by  delegates  from  counties  in  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire : 
*In  cases  of  deliberate,  dangerous,  and  palpable  infractions 
of  the  Constitution,  afifecting  the  sovereignty  of  a  State 
and  liberties  of  the  people,  it  is  not  only  the  right  but  the 
duty  of  such  State  to  interpose  for  their  protection  in  the 
manner  best  calculated  to  secure  that  end.'  'This  covers 
the  whole  doctrine  of  nullification.'  I  may  add,  it  covers 
the  whole  doctrine  of  secession,  for  it  recognized  the  right 
of  the  State  to  determine  when  infractions  of  the  Constitu- 
tion have  occurred,  and  to  apply  their  own  remedies." 

The  men  who  uttered  these  threats,  which  gave  "aid  and 
comfort"  to  the  enemies  of  this  country  while  they  were 
burning  its  capitol,  were  held  in  high  esteem.  To  this  day 
the  names  of  George  Cabot,  Nathan  Dove,  Roger  M.  Sher- 
man, and  their  associates  are  honored  in  New  England." 

The  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  in  1803,  created  much  dis- 
satisfaction throughout  New  England,  for  the  reason,  as 
expressed  by  George  Cabot,  Senator  from  Massachusetts, 
and  the  grandfather  of  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  (in 
whose  "Life  of  George  Cabot"  the  statement  is  made) : 

"That  the  influence   of   our    [northeastern]    part  of  the 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


11 


Union  must  be  diminished  by  the  acquisition  of  more  weight 
at  the  other  extremity."  At  the  time  secession,  or  separa- 
tion of  the  States,  was  freely  discussed,  and  with  no  sugges- 
tion of  any  idea  among  its  advocates  that  it  was  treasonable 
or  revolutionary. 

Col.  Timothy  Pickering,  an  officer  in  the  Revolution, 
afterwards  Postmaster  General,  Secretary  of  War,  and  Sec- 
retary of  State  in  Washington's  Cabinet,  and  afterwards  for 
many  years  a  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  was  also  a  lead- 
ing secessionist  in  his  day.  In  Lodge's  "Life  of  Cabot," 
his  letters  to  Senator  Cabot  reveal  his  convictions  of  the 
power  in  a  sovereign  State  to  sever  its  connection  with  the 
Union.  In  one  of  his  letters,  written  in  1803  to  a  friend,  he 
says:  "I  will  not  despair.  I  will  rather  anticipate  a  new 
Confederacy,  exempt  from  the  corrupt  and  corrupting  in- 
fluences and  oppressions  of  the  aristocratic  Democrats  of 
the  South.  There  will  be  (our  children  at  the  furthest  will 
see  it)  a  separation.  The  white  and  black  populations  will 
mark  the  boundary." 

In  another  letter  he  says:  "The  principles  of  our  Revolu- 
tion point  to  the  remedy — a  separation;  that  this  can  be 
accomplished  without  spilling  one  drop  of  blood,  I  have  little 
doubt." 

Other  quotations  to  the  same  point  found  in  the  letters  of 
Col.  Pickering  might  be  given.  The  occasion  forbids.  Such 
were  his  views  of  the  nature  of  the  compact  under  the  Con- 
stitution. He  was  a  revolutionary  patriot,  a  friend  and  as- 
sociate of  Washington,  and  a  trusted  servant,  during  many 
long  years,  of  Massachusetts. 

In  181 1,  in  the  debate  of  the  bill  for  the  admission  of 
Louisiana  into  the  Union,  Josiah  Quincy,  a  member  of  Con- 
gress from  Massachusetts,  said: 

"If  this  bill  passes,  it  is  my  deliberate  opinion  that  it  is 
virtually  a  dissolution  of  the  Union;  that  it  will  free  the 
States  from  moral  obligation,  and  as  it  will  be  the  right  of 
all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty  of  some  definitely  to  prepare  for 
that  separation,  amicably  if  they  can,  violently  if  they  must." 

Cabot,  Quincy,  and  Pickering  were  strong  Federalists, 


12 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


not  "misguided  advocates  of  State  rights,"  but  friends  of 
a  strong,  centralized.  Federal  government. 

All  of  us  know  of  the  Hartford  Convention,  held  in  1814, 
growing  out  of  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  in  which  were 
representatives  regularly  elected  by  the  Legislatures  of 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut,  and  repre- 
sentatives irregularly  chosen  from  New  Hampshire  and  Ver- 
mont. They  sat  with  closed  doors,  but  it  is  known  that 
their  object  was  the  discussion  of  the  expediency  of  those 
States  withdrawing  from  the  Union  and  setting  up  a  sep- 
arate Confederation.  They  determined  upon  its  inexpe- 
diency then,  but  published  to  the  world  the  conditions  and 
circumstances  under  which  its  dissolution  might  become 
expedient. 

In  the  years  1844-45,  when  measures  were  taken  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
passed  a  resolution  that: 

"The  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  faithful  to  the 
compact  between  the  people  of  the  United  States,  according 
to  the  plain  meaning  and  intent  in  which  it  was  understood 
by  them,  is  sincerely  anxious  for  its  preservation;  but  that 
it  is  determined,  as  it  doubts  not  the  other  States  are,  to 
submit  to  undelegated  powers  in  no  body  of  men  on  earth," 
and  that  the  "project  for  the  annexation  of  Texas,  unless  ar- 
rested on  the  threshold,  may  tend  to  drive  these  States  into 
a  dissolution  of  the  Union." 

In  the  convention  which  framed  the  Constitution  itself 
the  proposition  was  made  and  lost,  giving  authority  to  em- 
ploy force  against  a  delinquent  State,  but  Mr.  Madison 
said: 

"The  use  of  force  against  a  State  would  look  more  like  a 
declaration  of  war  than  an  infliction  of  punishment,  and 
would  probably  be  considered  by  the  party  attacked  as  a 
dissolution  of  all  previous  compacts  by  which  it  may  have 
been  bound." 

Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  in  his  "Life  of  Webster," 
says: 

"It  was  probably  necessary — at  all  events  Mr,  Webster 
felt  it  to  be  so — to  argue  that  the  Constitution  at  the  outset 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


13 


was  not  a  compact  between  the  States,  but  a  national  in- 
strument, and  to  distinguish  the  cases  of  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky in  1799,  and  of  New  England  in  1814,  from  that  of 
South  Carolina  in  1830.  .  .  .  Unfortunately,  the  facts  were 
against  him  in  both  instances.  When  the  Constitution  was 
adopted  by  the  votes  of  States  at  Philadelphia,  and  accepted 
by  the  votes  of  States  in  popular  conventions,  it  is  safe  to 
say  there  was  not  a  man  in  the  country,  from  Washington 
and  Hamilton  on  the  one  side  to  George  Clinton  and  George 
Mason  on  the  other,  who  regarded  the  system  as  anything 
but  an  experiment  entered  upon  by  the  States,  and  from 
which  each  and  every  State  had  the  right  peaceably  to  with- 
draw, a  right  which  was  very  likely  to  be  exercised." 

Wendell  Phillips,  a  lawyer,  an  author,  and  a  statesman, 
in  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  in  1861,  said  that  the  States  who 
think  their  peculiar  institutions  require  a  separate  govern- 
ment "have  a  right  to  decide  that  question  without  appeal- 
ing to  you  or  me." 

"A  convention  in  Ohio  in  1859  declared  the  Constitution 
a  compact  to  which  each  State  acceded  as  a  State,  and  is 
an  integral  party,  and  that  each  State  had  the  right  to  judge 
for  itself  of  infractions,  and  of  the  mode  and  measure  of 
redress,  and  to  this  declaration  Giddings,  Wade,  Chase,  and 
Denison  assented." 

At  Capon  Springs,  Va.,  June  28,  1851,  Daniel  Webster 
said: 

"I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  and  repeat  that  if  the  Northern 
States  refuse  willfully  and  deliberately  to  carry  into  effect 
that  part  of  the  Constitution  which  respects  the  restoration 
of  fugitive  slaves,  and  Congress  provide  no  remedy,  the 
South  would  no  longer  be  bound  to  observe  the  compact. 
A  bargain  broken  on  one  side  is  broken  on  all  sides." 

Writing  to  a  committee  of  New  York  lawyers  in  1851,  Mr. 
Webster  said: 

"In  the  North,  the  purpose  of  overturning  the  govern- 
ment shows  itself  more  clearly  in  resolutions  agreed  to  in 
voluntary  assemblies  of  individuals,  denouncing  the  laws  of 
the  land,  and  declaring  a  fixed  intent  to  disobey  them.  I 
notice  that  in  one  of  these  meetings,  holden  lately  in  the 


14 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


very  heart  of  New  England,  and  said  to  have  been  very 
numerously  attended,  the  members  unanimously  resolved 
That  as  God  is  our  helper  we  will  not  sufifer  any  person 
charged  with  being  a  fugitive  from  labor  to  be  taken  from 
among  us,  and  to  this  resolve  we  pledge  our  lives,  our  for- 
tunes, and  our  sacred  honor.'  "  He  conjured  his  fellow-citi- 
zens "to  reject  all  such  ideas  as  that  disobedience  to  the  laws 
is  the  path  of  patriotism,  or  treason  to  yoar  country  duty 
to  God." 

I  need  not  array  further  evidence  as  to  where  and  when 
the  seeds  of  disunion  were  first  sown.  The  truth  is,  they 
antedate  the  Constitution,  and  the  nursery  and  hotbed  in 
which  they  were  cared  for  and  cultivated  in  the  first  fifty 
years  of  the  republic  was  in  the  North,  principally  New 
England.  The  truth  I  believe  is  that,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, a  large  majority  of  the  South  believed  in  the  consti- 
tutional right  of  a  State  to  secede  and  some  believed  in  the 
doctrine  of  nullificatioii  as  a  remedy  for  flagrant  violations 
of  the  Constitution;  but  they  loved  the  Union,  and,  largely 
controlling  its  destinies  for  sixty  out  of  seventy  years,  they 
held  it  steadily  within  its  constitutional  limits.  They  never 
nursed  any  doctrine  looking  to  its  destruction.  In  its  early 
perils,  when  its  enemies  withi.i  and  without  threatened  its 
existence,  when  at  best  it  was  an  experiment,  the  South  was 
found  entangled  in  no  hostile  machinations.  xA.s  in  her  rev- 
olutionary struggles  the  South  sent  to  the  army  no  Benedict 
Arnold,  so  in  the  weakness  of  her  infancy  she  furnished  no 
Shay's  rebellions  nor  Hartford  conventions. 

Alexander  Stephens  has  said,  and  it  is  worth  remembering, 
that: 

"No  Southern  State  ever  did,  intentionally  or  otherwise, 
fail  to  perform  her  obligation  as  to  her  confederates  under 
the  Constitution,  according  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  its 
stipulated  covenants,  and  they  never  asked  of  Congress  any 
action  or  invoked  its  powers  upon  any  subject  which  did 
not  lie  Clearly  within  the  provisions  of  the  Articles  of 
Union." 

I  affirm,  therefore,  if  odium  is  to  attach  to  the  South  for 
the  act  of  secession,  it  must  also  attach  to  the  great  North 


THI-:  soi/TH  \"ixdicatp:d. 


15 


and  East,  where  it  was,  for  political,  economical,  and  indus- 
trial reasons,  sedulously  agitated  and  inculcated  up  to  the 
Mexican  war,  and  the  right  distinctly  recognized  by  its  lead- 
ing statesmen  up  to  i860.  History  ought  to  not  allow  them 
to  slip  this  odium,  if  odium  it  be,  from  their  shoulders  to 
the  shoulders  of  the  South. 

It  is  true,  South  Carolina  inaugurated  nullification  in  1830, 
a  doctrine  which  was  never  generally  accepted  by  the  South- 
ern statesmen,  and  which,  to  my  mind,  has  always  seemed 
illogical,  if  not  unethical;  a  doctrine  which,  as  I  have  always 
understood,  President  Davis  never  approved,  and  a  doctrine 
which  President  Jackson  unceremoniously  stamped  out;  a 
doctrine,  nevertheless,  as  we  shall  see,  which  permeated  all 
the  abolition  States  of  the  North. 

Our  children  should  know  that  the  Confederate  States, 
by  the  act  of  secession,  made  no  war  on  the  United  States; 
that  the  war  between  the  States  was  not  rebellion. 
It  was  the  result  of  an  efifort  by  the  United  States  to  coerce 
States  against  their  will  to  remain  in  the  Union,  a  power 
not  to  be  found  in  the  Constitution,  a  power  which  all  the 
earlier  fathers  believed  did  not  exist,  a  power  utterly  in- 
consistent with  the  right  of  secession,  which  it  is  believed 
all  parts  o'"  the  country  recognized  when  the  Constitution 
was  framed  and  for  many  years  thereafter. 

If  the  Southern  States  had  the  power,  notwiih-tanJing 
the  Constitution,  to  withdrr.w  from  the  Union  in  1803,  in 
1812  and  in  1845,  as  New  England  statesmen  then  affirmed, 
they  had  the  same  power  in  1861.  No  change  of  the  Con- 
stitution had  been  made,  and  the  relations  of  the  States 
to  each  other  were  unaltered.  If  that  power  existed  at  all, 
the  expediency  of  withdrawing  was  one  solely  for  each  State 
to  decide  for  itself. 

The  New  York  Triouiic,  the  organ  of  the  abolitionists  of 
that  day,  said:  "If  the  Cotton  States  wish  to  withdraw  from 
the  Union,  they  should  be  allowed  to  do  so,"  and  that  "any 
attempt  to  force  them  to  remain  would  be  contrary  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  to  the  funda- 
mental ideas  upon  which  human  liberty  is  based,"  and  that 
"if  the  Declaration  of  Independence  justified  the  secession 


16 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


from  the  British  Empire  of  three  millions  of  subjects  in 
1776,  it  was  not  seen  why  it  would  not  justify  th3  secession 
of  five  millions  of  Southerners  from  the  Union  in  1861." 

I  make  no  apology  for  quoting  a  single  paragraph  from 
that  instrument,  the  Declaration  of  Independence: 

"We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident:  that  all  men  are 
created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  them  are  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  that  to  secure  these  rights 
governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just 
power  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  that  whenever 
any  form  cf  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends, 
it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to 
institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundations  on  such 
principles  and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form  as  to 
them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  eftect  their  safety  and  happi- 
ness." 

Assuming  the  power  existed,  I  affirm  that  if  at  any  time 
in  all  our  history  secession  was  ever  justifiable  it  was  in 
1861.  No  less  than  fourteen  Northern  States  had,  by  Legis- 
lative enactments,  nullified  the  fugitive  slave  law;  and  what 
of  this  fugitive  slave  law? 

When  the  Constitution  was  framed  slavery  was  lawful 
in  all  the  States,  and  actually  existed  in  nearly  all.  True, 
it  had  been  forbidden  by  a  congressional  ordinance  in  the 
Northwest  Territory,  but  that  ordinance  was  accompanied 
by  a  proviso  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves,  and  this 
proviso,  says  Dr.  Curry,  "was  the  precursor  of  the  fugitive 
slave  clause,  embedded  the  same  year  in  the  Constitution, 
without  a  dissenting  voice." 

In  the  Dred  Scott  case,  Mr.  Justice  Nelson  said:  "We  all 
know,  the  world  knows,  that  our  independence  could  not 
have  been  achieved,  our  Union  could  not  have  been  main- 
tained, our  Constitution  could  not  have  been  established, 
without  the  adoption  of  those  compromises  which  recognized 
its  continued  existence,  and  left  it  (slavery)  to  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  States  of  which  it  was  the  grievous  inheritance." 

Mr.  Justice  Story,  in  the  Prigg  case,  said:  "Historically, 
it  is  well-known  that  the  object  of  this  clause  was  to  secure 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


17 


to  the  slaveholding  States  the  complete  right  and  title  of 
ownership  in  their  slaves,  as  property,  in  every  State  of  the 
Union  into  which  they  might  escape  from  the  State  where- 
in they  were  held  in  servitude." 

But  the  truth  demands  that  it  should  be  stated  that  neither 
that  ordinance  nor  the  constitutional  proviso  referred  to 
was  the  origin  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  "In  1643  Articles 
of  Confederation  were  formed  by  the  colonies  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New  Haven  for  mutual 
help.  The  Articles  provided  that  ell  servants  running  from 
their  masters  should,  upon  demand  and  proper  evidence, 
be  returned  to  their  masters  and  to  the  colonies  whence 
they  had  made  their  escape.  This  New  England  and  Puri- 
tan fugitive  slave  law  was  the  first  enacted  on  this  conti- 
nent." 

This  fugitive  slave  law,  thus  .lullified  by  fourteen  States, 
was  an  Act  of  Congress,  passed  in  pursuance  of  the  express 
mandate  of  the  Constitution.  The  temper  of  the  North  at 
that  time  may  be  best  illustrated  by  a  few  quotations. 

Mr.  Seward  said:  "There  is  a  higher  law  than  the  Consti- 
tution which  regulates  our  authority  over  our  domain. 
Slavery'  must  be  abolished,  and  we  must  do  it." 

Others  formulated  their  creed  into  this  sentence:  "The 
times  demand  and  we  must  have  an  antislavery  Constitu- 
tion, an  antislavery  Bible,  and  an  antislavery  God."' 

Mr.  Edmund  Quincy  thus  voiced  the  idea  of  his  school: 
"For  our  part  we  have  no  particular  desire  to  see  the  present 
law  repealed  or  modified.  What  we  preach  is  not  repeal, 
not  modification,  but  disobedience." 

A  reverend  and  active  abolition  agitator  said:  '"The  citi- 
zen of  a  government  tainted  with  slave  institutions  may  com- 
bine with  foreigners  to  put  down  the  government." 

In  addition  to  the  action  of  various  Northern  States  in 
nullifying  an  act  of  Congress,  John  Brown  had,  in  October, 
1859,  heading  a  band  of  armed  conspirators,  invaded  the  State 
of  Virginia,  seized  the  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  was 
pursuing  a  concocted  plan  to  arouse  the  slaves  of  Virginia 
to  insurrection,  to  plunder,  to  murder,  and  to  overthrow 
the  government  of  that  State. 


18 


THE  SOUTH  N'INDICATED. 


Judge  Taney,  second  to  no  one  who  ever  sat  on  the  Su- 
preme Court  bench,  unless  it  be  Marshall,  was  assailed  in 
the  bitterest  and  most  vituperative  terms  for  his  decision 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case.  The  solemn  judgment  of  that  court 
was  audaciously  and  insolently  set  at  naught  as  arbitrary 
and  void.  The  whole  North  was  angry  and  convulsed;  the 
voice  of  law  was  silent.  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  President  elect, 
and  the  idol  of  his  party,  had  said:  'The  Union  cannot  per- 
manently exist  half  slave  and  half  free." 

In  the  campaign  of  i860  Mr.  Seward  had  affirmed  that: 
"There  was  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  freedom  and 
slavery."  It  was  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war  by  the 
most  prominent  and  influential  statesmen  of  the  victorious 
party  upon  an  institution  peculiar  to  the  South. 

The  people  of  this  generation  cannot  comprehend  the 
intense  excitement  and  deep  feeling  existing  in  the  South, 
and  the  bitterness  growing  out  tf  this  question  between  the 
sections.  The  South  had  two  billions  invested  in  slaves 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected.  The  Constitution  had  been 
nullified  already.  His  position  on  the  slavery  question  was 
well  understood. 

Such  is  dim  portrayal  of  the  situation  by  which  the  South 
was  confronted  in  i860. 

What  had  she  to  hope  or  expect  in  the  Union?  No  such 
conditions  had  ever  previously  existed.  No  such  conse- 
quences had  provoked  New  England  to  threats  of  disunion. 
It  was  not  a  question  of  the  control  of  the  government,  or 
an  economical  or  industrial  question;  it  was  not  a  question 
of  preserving  the  balance  of  power  or  the  equilibrium  of 
the  sections,  such  as  was  felt  in  New  England  when  the 
Louisiana  and  Florida  purchases  were  made,  and  Texas  ac- 
quired. It  was  a  question  of  civilization,  of  constitutional 
liberty,  of  the  preservation  of  the  principles  of  the  Consti- 
tution; and  the  South,  when  the  alternative  was  presented 
of  abandoning  the  principles  of  the  Constitution,  or  giving 
up  the  Union,  with  alacrity,  but  with  the  deepest  reluctance 
that  the  necessity  existed,  chose  the  latter.  She  was  over- 
come, she  has  suffered,  but  she  ought  not  to  be  maligned  or 
misrepresented. 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


19 


I  must  not  be  misunderstood.  The  whole  question  of  se- 
cession and  disunion  has  been  forever  settled,  so  far  as  the 
domain  of  constitutional  law  is  concerned.  The  decree  was 
rendered  at  Appomattox,  and  was  written  in  the  best  blood 
of  all  sections  of  this  land.  It  was  rendered  in  the  court  of 
last  resort,  where  all  the  laws  but  those  of  war  are  silent. 
From  it  no  appeal  can  be  had  except  to  revolution,  which 
God  forbid. 

From  the  clear  skies  His  blessed  finger  points  to  a  re- 
stored Union,  and  His  beneficent  smile  is  spread  all  over  the 
land  where  dwells  a  people,  the  strongest,  the  most  enlight- 
ened, the  most  prosperous  and  happy  to  be  found  on  the 
habitable  globe.  In  all  our  struggles  we  have  not  been  for- 
gotten; His  mighty  hand  has  been  felt,  lifting  us  up  from 
our  calamities,  chastened  but  made  better  and  stronger  by 
His  loving-kindness.  "For  v.iiom  the  Lord  loveth  he 
chasteneth;  and  scourgeth  every  son  whom  he  receiveth." 

'"Slavery  has  been  called  the  trembling  needle  which 
pointed  the  course  amidst  the  tumultuous  discussions  of  our 
Congresses  until  the  war  between  the  States  began." 

But  the  South  did  not  go  to  war  for  slavery  alone.  Thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  soldiers  from  every  State  in  the 
South,  perhaps  not  less  than  eighty  per  cent  of  them,  entered 
the  army  v/illingly  and  deliberately,  and  served  through  the 
war,  who  never  owned  and  never  expected  to  own  a  slave. 
It  was  unmistakably  interwoven  among  the  causes  of  the 
war.  It  was  inseparable  from  all  the  great  industrial,  eco- 
nomic, and  sectional  questions  involving  the  policy  and  con- 
trol of  the  government.  It  enibittered  the  discussion  of 
every  public  question,  and  afterwards  embittered  the  great 
war  itself.  It  was  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  cause 
of  the  Confederacy.  It  brought  down  upon  it  the  preju- 
dices of  many  in  this  country  who  believed  in  the  great  prin- 
ciple for  which  the  South  contended,  but  who  would  not 
identify  themselves  with  a  cause  involving  the  perpetuation 
of  slavery.  It  brought  upon  the  South  the  moral  sense  of 
foreign  nations.  It  taught  us  what  Washington,  Jefferson, 
and  Madison  had  long  before  recognized — that  the  moral 
sense  of  mankind  did  not  sustain  it.    It  was  the  bane  of  our 


20 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


social  order,  and  it  was  the  chronic  cancer  which  gnawed 
at  the  vitals  of  our  future  greatness.  It  perished,  like  se- 
cession, as  one  of  the  incidents  and  results  of  the  war. 

Thank  God  it  is  gone  forever!  and  that  we  have  a  re- 
united country  under  one  flag,  the  emblem  of  a  free  people 
in  an  inseparable  Union  of  coequal  States,  and  never  des- 
tined, we  pray  God,  to  become  the  emblem  of  imperial 
power  at  home  or  abroad,  or  to  float  over  vassal  States  and 
subject  peoples  anywhere  against  their  will. 

Ours  was  not  a  war  of  conquest;  it  was  not  a  war  of  pelf; 
it  was  not  a  war  of  desolation;  it  was  not  a  war  of  fanati- 
cism; it  was  not  a  war  of  envy  and  malice;  it  was  not  a  war 
on  defenseless  and  homeless  noncombatants;  it  was  not  a 
war  of  coercion.  Ours  was  a  war  of  self-defense,  a  war  for 
home,  for  self-government,  for  State  sovereignty,  for  the 
right  to  peaceably  withdraw  from  the  Union  into  which  we 
had  voluntarily  entered,  but  to  which  no  power  had  been 
delegated  to  coerce  a  State.  It  was  a  war  to  establish  the 
true  lines  between  the  powers  reserved  to  the  States  and 
those  delegated  to  the  general  government.  It  was  a  war 
to  preserve  our  form  of  government  as  the  fathers  under- 
stood it  when  it  was  framed. 

"No  higher  encomium  can  be  rendered  to  the  South  than 
the  fact,  sustained  by  her  whole  history,  that  she  never  vio- 
lated the  Constitution;  that  she  committed  no  aggressions 
upon  the  rights  of  property  of  the  North;  that  she  simply 
asked  equality  in  the  Union  and  the  enforcement  and  main- 
tenance of  her  clearest  rights  and  guarantees." 

The  South  had  no  hatred  for  the  Union.  The  highest 
evidence  of  that  is  that  the  Confederate  Constitution  was 
substantially  the  same  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  modified  so  as  to  make  clear  the  construction  for 
which  the  South  had  always  contended.  There  were  few 
other  changes;  and  they  looked,  in  the  main,  to  the  correc- 
tion of  abuses  and  errors  which  experience  had  discovered. 
It  distinctly  inhibited  the  foreign  slave  trade,  prohibited 
their  introduction  ixito  the  Confederacy  from  any  other  Ter- 
ritory or  State  except  the  slaveholding  States  and  Territo- 
ries of  the  United  States,  and  gave  the  Congress  the  power 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


21 


to  prohibit  that  also.  True,  it  recognized  slavery,  as  did 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  afforded  like 
guarantees. 

No,  the  South  had  no  hatred  for  the  Constitution,  and  no 
hatred  for  the  Union.  It  was  her  Constitution  and  her  Un- 
ion, in  common  with  all  the  other  States  created  by  the  wis- 
dom and  courage  of  all  their  sons.  The  ashes  of  her  chil- 
dren consecrated  the  battlefield.s  of  the  Revolution.  They 
had  led  suffering  raid  half-clad  but  victorious  armies  for 
American  Independence.  Washington  and  Henry  Lee, 
]\Jarion.  Sumter,  and  Pinckney,  John  Paul  Tone-  and  Georgo 
Rogers  Clark  were  among  her  illustrious  soldiers  in  the 
great  struggle  for  independence. 

Camden,  King's  ^Mountain,  the  Cowpens,  Guilford  Court- 
house, Eutaw  Springs,  and  Yorktown  were  all  hers.  It  was 
our  Andrew  Jackson,  commanding  Southern  soldiers,  largely 
Kentuckians,  Tennesseeans,  and  Mississippians,  who  fought 
the  battle  of  New  Orleans,  term.inating  tlie  war  of  1815, 
the  war  which  has  been  called  the  second  war  of  Independ- 
ence, the  efifect  of  which  was  "to  vindicate  our  equality  and 
independence  among  the  nationalities  of  the  world.  It  gave 
us  a  position  of  dignity,  importance,  and  power  which  has 
never  been  diminished.  It  was  a  wholesome  agenc\  in  pro- 
moting national  unity,  in  developing  national  patriotism 
and  courage,  military  and  naval  skill  and  ability,  in  quieting 
for  many  years  sectional  discord,  and  demonstrating  our 
unaided  competency  to  defend  our  soil  and  coasts,  and  to 
cope  successfully  with  the  best-disciplined  army  and  the  most 
formidable  navy  01  the  old  world." 

In  this  centennial  year  of  the  celebration  of  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Louisiana  Territory.  I  can  hardly  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  suggest  what  might  have  been  the  destinies  of  the 
Great  Republic  if  the  prevision  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  a 
Southern  statesman,  had  not  comprehended  the  tremendous 
importance  to  the  commercial  development  of  the  United 
States  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union  that  the  "Father  of 
Waters'"  should  forever  rem.ain  under  their  control.  But  this 
digression,  however  inviting,  cannot  be  indulged. 

The  names  and  battlefields  I  have  mentioned  cannot  be 


22 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


separated  from  the  Union  any  more  than  the  light  from  the 
sun.  The  history  of  the  South,  with  all  its  tender  memories 
and  glorious  triumphs  in  war  and  in  peace,  were  bound  up 
in  the  history  of  the  colonies,  the  Confederation,  and  finally 
in  the  Union. 

Why  was  it  not  dear  to  her  people?  Why  should  she  not 
desire  to  preserve  it?  Why  should  five  millions  of  people, 
as  a  single  man,  rise  to  leave  their  father's  house,  but  for 
some  overshadowing  cause  and  impending  danger.  In  all 
history  did  ever  like  occur? 

And  when  the  North  determined  upon  coercion,  did  ever 
any  people  stand  together  as  did  the  people  of  the  South? 
With  her  ports  blockaded,  cut  oft"  from  the  outer  world,  with 
no  army  or  navy,  destitute  of  arms  and  ammunition,  almost 
without  manufacturing  industries  of  any  kind,  the  South  for 
four  years  conducted,  single-handed  and  alone,  against  the 
trained  army  and  navy  of  the  Union,  backed  by  the  extensive 
industries  of  the  North  with  its  enormous  population  and 
wealth,  with  its  immense  shipping  and  commerce,  and  with  its 
legions  of  mercenaries  from  other  lands,  the  most  stupen- 
dous war  of  modern  times.  Do  these  old  veterans  themselves 
realize  the  achievements  of  the  armies  of  the  Confederacy? 
One  in  whose  accuracy  I  have  implicit  faith  states  that 
more  than  half  as  many  men  were  enrolled  in  the  Union 
arm.y  as  the  entire  white  population  of  the  Southern  States 
proper,  including  all  the  women  and  children.  The  records 
show  that  more  than  two  million,  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  troops  were  furnished  the  Union  army  by  the 
States ;  and  while,  for  the  lack  of  official  data,  I  cannot  state, 
to  a  man,  the  enlistment  in  the  Southern  army  from  first  to 
last,  the  estimate  has  the  sanction  of  high  authority,  deemed 
reliable,  that  the  Confederate  forces  available  for  action  dur- 
ing the  war  did  not  exceed  six  hundred  thousand  soldiers, 
of  whom  there  were  not  more  than  two  hundred  thousand 
arms-bearing  men  at  any  one  time,  and  when  the  war  closed, 
half  that  number  covered  the  whole  efifective  force,  of  all 
arms,  in  all  quarters  of  the  Confederacy. 

Besides  the  disparity  in  the  land  forces,  there  was  the  Fed- 
eral navy,  the  gunboats  and  the  ironclads,  without  which 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


23 


many  believe  Grant's  army  would  have  been  lost  at  Shiloh 
and  McClellan's  on  the  Peninsula. 

When  the  Union  army  dissolved,  four  hundred  thousand 
more  men  were  borne  on  its  roll  than  the  estimated  enlist- 
ments of  the  Southern  army,  from  the  spring  of  1861,  to  the 
spring  of  1865,  and  during  that  time  there  had  been  two 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  Federal  prisoners  captured. 

Three  hundred  thousand  Federal  soldiers  sleep  in  eighty- 
three  beautiful  Federal  cemeteries,  rightly  cared  for  by  the 
government,  to  tell  to  posterity  the  awful  story  of  that 
mighty  fratricidal  conflict. 

How  shall  we  account  for  these  things?  Has  all  history 
afforded  a  parallel?  What  is  it  that  made  the  South  a  unit 
and  molded  its  armies  for  terrible  battle?  Let  the  unpartisan 
and  truth-seeking  historian  of  the  future  answer;  but  what- 
ever his  answer  may  be,  if  he  could  challenge  the  respect  of 
mankind,  let  him  not  say  the  cause,  the  sentiment,  the  con- 
viction, or  whatever  it  was  that  inspired  them  to  brave  and 
noble  deeds  did  not  have  the  abiding  faith  and  solemn  sanc- 
tion of  her  armies  in  the  field  or  her  people  at  their  homes. 
Until  the  ragged  and  half-starved  remnants  of  Lee's  and 
Johnston's  armies  laid  down  their  arms  and  accepted  the 
cold,  stern  award  of  defeat ;  until  the  ever-increasing  and 
overpowering  numbers  of  Grant's  and  Sherman's  armies 
made  battle  no  longer  possible,  unfaltering  they  stood  to- 
gether without  a  murmur,  still  hoping  against  hope  for  the 
triumph  of  their  cause;  and  when  the  end  came,  and  dis- 
aster and  ruin  met  the  eye  on  all  sides,  and  when  at  every 
fireside  was  a  vacant  chair;  when  blackened  chimneys  identi- 
fied spots  where  happy  homes  had  stood;  when  poverty  and 
want  stalked  abroad;  when  aliens  came  to  rule  that  they 
might  plunder;  when  ignorance  and  audacity  flaunted  them- 
selves in  high  places,  and  corruption  had  its  ready  and  rich 
rewards — still  they  were  true ;  true  to  themselves,  true  to 
their  comrades  and  the  memory  of  their  martyred  dead, 
true  to  their  old  leaders,  true  to  their  great  captain,  and  true 
to  their  States  and  to  their  beloved  South.  Their  armies 
had  gone  down  in  defeat,  their  cause  had  failed,  their  fortunes 
had   been    swept   away,    disappointment   and    sorrows  and 


24 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


Strange  conditions  hovered  on  all  sides  and  darkened  all 
the  ways;  but  there  was  no  treacherous  and  cowardly  turn- 
ing, to  fix  upon  their  civil  or  military  leaders  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  origin  or  results  of  the  war.  They  had  staked 
everything  for  a  principle  in  vain.  Courageous  and  true, 
they  accepted  their  fate,  and  turned  again  to  build  up  their 
wasted  fortunes  and  prostrated  commonwealths. 

To  me  the  sweetest  and  noblest  chapter  in  the  book  of  our 
misfortunes  and  sorrows  was  the  treatment  which  the  South 
accorded  the  fallen  chief  of  the  Confederacy.  His  was  a 
pure,  a  great,  and  an  incorruptible  career.  He  had  served 
the  Union  with  great  distinction  in  high  stations,  in  war 
and  in  peace.  No  ambitious  longings  for  place  or  power 
now  remained.  All  hope  for  his  preferment  had  gone  out 
in  the  darkness  of  defeat.  Imprisoned  and  in  irons,  he  suf- 
fered for  them  all.  Released  without  trial,  no  plea  for  par- 
don, disfranchised,  broken  in  health,  and  tottering  with  care 
and  age,  he  returned  to  his  people,  to  be  welcomed  as  no 
other  man,  and  in  the  calm  dignity  of  a  private  citizen,  in  his 
quiet  home,  he  remained  their  idol,  their  counselor,  and 
their  friend,  devoting  the  last  days  of  his  noble  life  to  the 
preparation  of  a  defense  and  justification  of  that  people  for 
whom  he  had  been  made  a  vicarious  sacrifice.  He  had  never 
lost  their  faith,  their  confidence,  their  admiration,  or  their  love. 
There  is  something  strong  and  deserving  of  all  honor  in  a 
people  like  this. 

We  are  assembled  here  for  no  ignoble  ends.  We  are  here 
to  revive  no  issues  settled  by  that  unhappy  conflict.  We  are 
not  here  to  defame  others,  or  pervert  or  warp  the  truth. 
We  are  not  here  to  exaggerate  or  magnify  the  glory  or 
virtues  of  one  section  of  our  common  country  at  the  ex- 
pense of  another;  nor  are  we  here  to  desecrate  this  occasion 
by  the  gratification  of  personal  ambition,  or  the  acquirement 
of  social  distinction  or  political  preferment.  We  are  here 
that  mankind  may  not  forget,  nor  falsehood  nor  calumny 
cloud  or  tarnish  the  calm  judgment  of  posterity,  as  to  the 
sincerity  of  the  motives  and  the  honorable  conduct  of  the 
Confederate  soldiers.  We  affirm  our  desire  that  our  chil- 
dren may  understand  these  things;  that  they  may  the  more 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


25 


reverence  their  ancestry;  that  they  may  know  of  their  suf- 
ferings and  sacrifices  and  be  able  to  defend  their  good 
names,  and,  proud  of  their  achievements,  emulate,  in  the 
great  struggles  of  the  future,  if  such  await  our  country,  the 
fidelity,  patriotism,  love  of  home  and  country  attested  by 
the  veterans  of  1861  on  a  hundred  bloody  battlefields. 

Who  would  have  them  forget  the  Lees,  the  Johnstons, 
the  Jacksons,  and  the  Hills?  Who  would  have  them  forget 
Bragg,  Beauregard,  Hardee,  Price,  Polk,  and  Hood?  Who 
would  have  them  forget  that  great  wizard  of  the  saddle, 
Bedford  Forrest,  and  our  own  little  Joe  Wheeler,  Pat  Cle- 
burne, the  lamented  Walthall,  and  innumerable  others?  Who 
would  have  us  forget  the  grand  old  man  yet  with  us,  and 
others  still  spared;  and  the  hosts  who  made  for  them  names 
that  can  never  perish  from  the  earth  as  long  as  genius  and 
courage  and  patriotism  challenge  the  admiration  of  man- 
kind? 

Who  would  have  them  ignorant  of  the  glorious  charge  of 
Pickett  and  others  at  Gettysburg?  Who  would  have  them 
forget  the  death  struggle  at  Franklin,  Tenn.,  where  the  Con- 
federates won  a  glorious  victory,  but  at  a  cost  of  eleven  gen- 
eral officers  killed  and  wounded  and  six  thousand  men — 
nearly  one-fifth  of  the  army — in  five  hours?  Where  Gist  and 
Adams  and  Strahl  and  Cranberry  and  the  intrepid  Pat  Cle- 
burne fell — fell  in  the  very  forefront  of  battle,  and  around 
them  in  great  numbers  were  strewn  their  gallant  dead?  Who 
would  have  them  forget  Chickamauga,  where  friendly  dark- 
ness shielded  the  army  of  the  Cumberland  from  destruction? 
Who  would  have  them  forget  Jackson  in  the  Valley  of  Vir- 
ginia, whose  campaigns  have  challenged  the  military  critics 
of  England  and  Germany  to  find  a  single  error? 

D'r.  Hunter  McGuire,  Jackson's  corps  surgeon,  in  an  ad- 
dress delivered  in  Richmond  in  1897,  made  this  statement: 
"Therefore  it  is  with  swelling  heart  and  deep  thankfulness 
that  I  recently  heard  some  of  the  first  soldiers  and  military 
students  of  England  declare  that  within  the  past  two  hundred 
years  the  English-speaking  race  had  produced  but  five  sol- 
diers of  the  first  rank — Marlborough,  Washington,  Welling- 
ton, Robert  Lee,  and  Stonewall  Jackson.    I  heard  them 


26 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


declare  that  Jackson's  campaign  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley, 
in  which  you,  and  you,  and  myself  in  my  subordinate  place, 
followed  this  immortal,  was  the  finest  specimen  of  strategy 
and  tactics  of  which  the  world  has  any  record;  that  in  this 
series  of  marches  and  battles  there  was  never  a  blunder 
committed  by  Jackson;  that  his  campaign  in  the  Valley  was 
superior  to  either  of  those  made  by  Napoleon  in  Italy.  One 
British  officer,  who  teaches  strategy  in  a  great  European 
college,  told  me  that  he  used  this  campaign  as  a  model  of 
strategy  and  tactics,  and  dwelt  upon  it  for  several  months 
in  his  lectures;  that  it  was  taught  for  months  in  each  session 
in  the  schools  of  Germany,  and  that  Von  Moltke,  the  great- 
est strategist,  declared  it  was  without  a  rival  in  the  world's 
history.  This  same  British  officer  told  me  that  he  had  rid- 
den on  horseback  over  the  battlefields  of  the  Valley,  and 
carefully  studied  the  strategy  and  tactics  there  displayed  by 
Jackson ;  that  he  had  followed  him  to  Richmond,  where  he 
joined  with  Lee  in  the  campaign  against  McClellan  in  1862; 
that  he  had  followed  him  in  his  detour  around  Pope,  and  in 
his  management  of  his  troops  at  Manassas;  that  he  had 
studied  his  environment  of  Harper's  Ferry  and  its  capture, 
his  part  in  the  fight  at  Sharpsburg  and  his  flank  movement 
around  Hooker — and  that  he  had  never  blundered.  Indeed, 
he  added,  "Jackson  seemed  to  be  mspired."  Another  British 
officer  told  me  that  "for  its  numbers  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  had  more  force  and  power  than  any  army  that  ever 
existed." 

It  is  cruel  to  discriminate,  but  this  tribute  from  such  a 
source  is  too  rich  to  be  lost.  It  should  go  into  history  as 
the  priceless  heritage  of  our  people. 

I  ought  not  to  specify,  but  will  you  bear  with  me  for  one 
further  incident,  pathetic  as  it  is  heroic,  and  glowing  with 
the  spirit  which  animated  the  sacred  dead  we  strive  to  honor? 

At  Lexington,  Va.,  where  the  remains  of  Gens.  Lee  and 
Jackson  now  sleep,  is  the  Virginia  Military  Institute.  It 
was  in  successful  operation  in  May,  1864,  when  Seigel  ad- 
vanced up  the  Valley.  Gen.  John  C.  Breckinridge  was  sent 
with  an  inadequate  force  to  arrest  his  advance.  A  corps  of 
cadets,  boys  seventeen  and  under,  from  this  school,  con- 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


27 


sisting  of  a  battalion  of  four  companies  of  infantry,  and  a 
section  of  three-inch  rifled  guns,  were  ordered  to  report  to 
him  at  Staunton.  The  march  was  made  in  two  days.  Two 
or  three  short  marches  brought  him  in  touch  with  Breckin- 
ridge's veterans.  Their  bright,  gaudy  uniforms,  clean  and 
new,  their  smooth,  girlish  faces,  trim  step,  and  jaunty  airs 
subjected  them  to  severe  raillery  and  all  manner  of  fun  from 
the  old  soldiers.  Breckinridge  did  not  want  to  use  them  if 
it  could  be  avoided.  Having  determined  to  receive  the  at- 
tack of  Seigel  at  New  Market,  the  boy  corps  was  ordered, 
in  a  beating  rain,  to  report  to  Gen.  Echols.  It  was  not  long 
until  the  bright,  new  uniforms,  bedraggled  with  rain  and 
mud,  presented  the  corps  in  a  dilapidated  and  pitiable  state; 
but  they  moved  on  and  took  position  on  the  extreme  left 
of  the  reserve  line  of  battle.  Wharton's  brigade  was  in  ad- 
vance, and  the  boy  corps,  brigaded  with  Echols,  was  in  the 
reserve.  Hie  order  to  advance  soon  came.  A  slight  knoll 
was  reached,  and  the  batteries  opened;  but,  not  having  the 
range,  little  damage  was  done  to  Wharton's  men.  But  when 
Echols's  men  reached  it  they  had  the  range,  and  their  fire 
began  to  tell  with  fearful  accuracy.  Let  their  Colonel  tell 
the  rest.    He  says: 

"Great  gaps  were  made  through  the  ranks;  but  the  cadet, 
true  to  his  discipline,  would  close  in  to  the  center  to  fill 
the  interval,  and  push  steadily  forward.  The  alignment  of 
the  battalion  under  this  terrible  fire,  which  strewed  the 
ground  with  killed  and  wounded  for  more  than  a  mile  on 
open  ground,  would  have  been  creditable  even  on  a  field 
day.  They  moved  steadily  forward  for  more  than  a  mile 
beyond  New  Market.  When  within  three  hundred  yards  of 
the  enemy's  batteries,  they  opened  with  canister,  case  shot 
and  long  lines  of  musketry  at  the  same  time.  The  fire  was 
withering — it  seemed  impossible  that  any  living  creature 
could  escape — and  here  we  sustained  our  heaviest  loss.  The 
commander  fell,  but  a  cadet  captain  took  command  of  the 
battalion  and  moved  forward  until  they  had  gotten  into  the 
first  line,  when  all  took  shelter  behind  a  fence,  and  then, 
after  a  few  minutes,  with  a  shout,  a  fusillade,  and  a  rush, 
the  enemy  fled  and  the  day  was  won." 


28 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


They  had  gone  as  far  as  the  best  troops  in  the  army. 
There  were  none  to  guy  them  then.  They  had  challenged  the 
love  and  admiration  of  the  veterans  of  the  Army  of  North- 
ern Virginia,  and  fifty-two  of  their  battalion,  of  the  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  composing  it,  killed  and  wounded  that  day, 
won  them  a  place  they  can  never  lose  in  history. 

I  cannot  tell  you  what  it  was  that  inspired  those  beardless 
boys  to  deeds  of  noble  bearing  and  death.  Whatever  it  was 
ran  through  the  Confederate  armies.  These  were  the  sons 
of  the  old  South.  Is  it  to  be  despised?  Where  shall 
brighter  or  nobler  examples  of  heroism  and  sacrifice  be 
found? 

And  may  I  not  revert  to  the  manner  in  which  the  war  was 
conducted  by  the  Confederates?  To  this  I  point  with  justi- 
fiable pride.  It  was  a  splendid  race  of  men  that  built  up 
the  old  South.  They  were  the  descendants  of  the  Cavaliers. 
They,  like  other  men,  had  their  faults,  but  they  cherished 
the  glorious  memories  of  a  long  line  of  ancestry  who  de- 
spised all  that  was  contemptible,  little,  and  mean;  they  were 
sticklers  for  the  observance  of  the  highest  sense  of  honor; 
they  built  their  lofty  characters  on  the  observance  of  the 
truth;  they  hated  moral  and  physical  cowardice,  and  their 
homes  were  the  habitations  of  virtue,  chivalry,  and  hospi- 
tality; but  they  were  conservative;  they  were  lovers  of  home 
and  the  devoted  friends  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  They 
believed  in  as  little  government  as  was  consistent  with  the 
maintenance  of  law  and  order,  and  that  whatever  went  be- 
yond this  was  an  infringement  upon  the  liberty  of  the  in- 
dividual, destructive  of  that  love  the  citizen  owed  the  State, 
and  tended  to  destroy  the  self-reliance  and  independence  of 
the  individual  upon  whose  love,  strength,  and  manhood 
rested  the  temple  of  free  constitutional  government.  What 
contributions  they  have  made  to  the  betterment  of  man- 
kind, and  what  inspiration  they  have  given  the  great  masses 
who  have  builded  this  wonderful  country  of  ours! 

The  great  Mississippian,  the  lawyer,  the  statesman  and 
the  General,  as  great  in  peaci  as  in  war,  himself  having 
borne  a  conspicuously  brilliant  and  honorable  part  in  the 
heroic  struggle  of  which  I  speak,  in  an  address  delivered  at 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


29 


the  unveiling  of  a  monument  to  the  Confederate  dead  at 
Jackson,  Miss.,  said  of  these  men  of  the  old  South  of  whom 
I  speak,  that :  "From  among  them  came  the  statesman  who 
wrote  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  and,  strange  as  it 
may  sound  in  this  day  of  universal  freedom,  it  is  said  that  all 
who  signed  the  Declaration,  except  those  from  the  State 
of  Massachusetts,  and  perhaps  one  or  two  others,  were  slave- 
holders. From  among  them  came  the  Father  of  His  Coun- 
try, the  Father  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  greatest  of  all 
its  expounders.  At  the  head  of  the  great  armies,  in  the 
presidential  office,  in  cabinet  and  court,  and  in  all  the  na- 
tion's high  councils,  everywhere,  in  peace  and  in  war,  great 
Southern  lights  illuminate  the  annals  of  America,  and  shed 
upon  our  country's  name  its  chief  honor  and  renown.  From 
the  foundation  of  the  government,  through  all  the  epochs 
of  peace  and  arms,  down  to  1861,  Southern  statesmen  and 
orators,  Southern  philosophers  and  judges.  Southern  pa- 
triots and  soldiers  have  enacted  the  brightest  chapters  of  this 
country's  history,  and  to  them  we  are  indebted  for  the  fun- 
damental sources  of  its  present  power." 

The  descendants  of  such  men  as  these  conducted  the  war 
on  the  Confederate  side.  Is  it  surprising  that  it  was  con- 
ducted on  the  highest  plane  of  modern  warfare?  In  no 
single  instance  is  it  recorded,  even  in  the  partisan  histories 
already  written,  that  ruin  and  desolation  followed  in  the 
footsteps  of  its  armies;  nor  that  their  marches  were  known 
by  "pillars  of  fire  by  night  and  clouds  of  smoke  by  day," 
nor  that  the  birds  of  the  air  could  not  follow  them  without 
carrying  their  rations.  Sherman's  march  to  the  sea,  as  told 
by  himself,  and  Sheridan's  raid  through  the  Valley  of  Vir- 
ginia, as  characterized  by  his  own  pen,  find  no  counterpart 
in  Lee's  march  to  Gettysburg  or  Antietam,  or  in  Morgan's 
raid  through  Ohio.  No  Confederate  general  ever  recorded 
any  boast  of  his  cruelty  to  noncombatants,  or  felt  a  pride  in 
making  a  Warsaw  of  any  part  of  American  soil.  To  empha- 
size these  statements,  I  invoke  your  patience  while  I  read 
an  order  issued  by  a  man  while  in  the  enemy's  country, 
whom  I  believe  to  represent  the  highest  type  of  genuine 
and  true  manhood  to  be  found  in  all  history : 


30 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


"Headquarters  of  Army  of  Northern  Virginia, 
Chambersburg,  Pa.,  June  27,  1863. 

'The  Commanding  General  has  observed  with  marked 
satisfaction  the  conduct  of  the  troops  on  the  march,  and 
confidently  anticipates  results  commensurate  with  the  high 
spirit  they  have  manifested.  No  troops  could  have  dis- 
played greater  fortitude  or  better  performed  the  arduous 
marches  of  the  past  ten  days.  Their  conduct  in  other  re- 
spects has,  with  few  exceptions,  been  in  keeping  with  their 
character  as  soldiers,  and  entitled  them  to  approbation  and 
praise. 

"There  have,  however,  been  instances  of  forgetfulness  on 
the  part  of  some,  that  they  have  in  keeping  the  yet  unsullied 
reputation  of  the  army,  and  that  the  duties  t^xacted  of  us  by 
civilization  and  Christianity  are  not  less  obligatory  in  the 
country  of  the  enemy  than  our  own.  The  Commanding 
General  considers  that  no  greater  disgrace  could  befall  the 
army,  and  through  it  the  whole  people,  than  the  perpetration 
of  the  barbarous  outrages  upon  the  innocent  and  defense- 
less and  the  wanton  destruction  of  private  property  that 
have  marked  the  course  of  the  enemy  in  our  own  country. 
Such  proceedings  not  only  disgrace  the  perpetrators  and  all 
connected  with  them,  but  are  subversive  of  the  discipline 
and  efficiency  of  the  army,  and  destructive  of  the  ends  of 
our  present  movements.  It  must  be  remembered  that  we 
make  war  only  on  armed  men,  and  that  we  cannot  take 
vengeance  for  the  wrongs  our  people  have  suffered,  without 
lowering  ourselves  in  the  eyes  cf  all  whose  abhorrence  has 
been  excited  by  the  atrocities  of  our  enemy,  and  offending 
against  Him  to  whom  vengeance  belongeth,  without  whose 
favor  and  support  our  efforts  must  all  prove  in  vain. 

"The  Commanding  General  therefore  earnestly  exhorts 
the  troops  to  abstain  with  most  scrupulous  care  from  un- 
necessary or  wanton  injury  to  private  property,  and  he  en- 
joins upon  all  offixcers  to  arrest  and  bring  to  summary  pun- 
ishment all  who  shall  in  any  way  offend  against  the  orders 
on  the  subject." 

Who  could  have  written  this  order  except  Robert  E.  Lee? 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


31 


Years  after  the  war  had  closed,  at  a  time,  it  is  true,  when 
its  passions  had  not  subsided,  and  bitterness  in  the  hearts  of 
people  of  one  section  toward  their  countrymen  in  the  other 
still  lingered,  in  a  spirit  of  splendid  magnanimity,  the  vic- 
torious conqueror,  the  great  Captain  of  the  Union  army, 
taught  the  grand  lesson  of  forgiveness  and  fraternity  in  the 
imperishable  words,  "Let  us  have  peace." 

But  this  order  of  Gen.  Lee  was  penned  in  the  very  midst 
of  the  furious  struggle,  when  every  heart  was  filled  with  re- 
sentment and  indignation  at  the  cruel  outrages  upon  inno- 
cent and  defenseless  noncon)batants  and  wanton  and  mali- 
cious destruction  of  private  property,  even  the  family  por- 
traits and  heirlooms,  and  household  effects  essential  to  the 
comfort  of  the  unprotected  wives  and  children  of  the  sol- 
diers in  the  field.  Contrast  it  with  Sherman's  march  to  the 
sea  and  Sheridan's  raid  in  the  Valley;  with  the  wanton 
destruction  by  fire  of  the  captured  cities  Atlanta,  Columbia, 
Charleston;  and  finally  with  that  order  of  that  other  Vir- 
ginian, Hunter,  by  which  the  torch  was  applied  even  to  the 
institutions  of  learning,  and  the  building  and  library  and 
apparatus,  the  accumulations  of  forty  years,  of  the  Virginia 
Military  Institute,  and  the  library  and  apparatus  of  Wash- 
ington College,  endowed  by  the  Father  of  His  Country, 
perished  in  the  angry  flames;  or  contrast  it  with  the  con- 
duct of  Butler  in  New  Orleans. 

In  peace  Grant  gloriously  triumphed  over  the  passions 
engendered  by  war;  but  Lee,  horrified  by  the  heartless 
atrocities  of  the  invading  foe,  in  the  midst  of  the  enemy's 
country,  with  every  opportunity  for  revenge,  triumphantly 
rose  above  all  the  natural  instincts  of  the  human  heart  for 
revenge,  to  inculcate  and  to  practice  the  teachings  of  the 
Saviour  of  mankind,  "Vengeance  is  mine,  I  will  repay." 

Peerless,  glorious  Robert  E.  Lee !  Glorious  in  prosperity — 
more  glorious  in  adversity ;  glorious  in  victory — more  glorious 
in  defeat;  resplendent  in  life — triumphant  in  death. 

What  a  monument  is  this  to  the  character  of  the  Southern 
army! 

One  who  followed  Bragg  through  Kentucky  could  not 
have  known  by  observation  that  an  army  had  passed  along 


32 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


the  highway  unless  he  had  seen  where  it  had  camped  at 
night,  and  not  then  because  any  fence  had  lost  a  rail  or  any 
orchard  its  fruit. 

Is  there  not  something  in  the  history  of  a  people  like  that 
worth  preserving?  May  no  lessons  here  be  drawn  for  the 
elevation  of  mankind ;  no  memories  worthy  of  the  children 
of  the  South?  We  must  not  forget  that  a  large  number  of 
the  survivors  of  that  conflict  have  taken  up  their  abode  in 
the  Silent  City,  and  those  who  remain  are  admonished 
that  white  heads  are  the  companions  of  failing  memories. 
Whatever  they  shall  do  by  way  of  fixing  the  true  status  of 
the  Confederate  soldier  must  be  done  in  the  near  future,  for 

"To  the  past  go  more  dead  faces  every  year; 
Everywhere  the  sad  eyes  meet  us; 
In  the  evening's  dust  they  greet  us, 
And  to  come  to  them  entreat  us, 
Every  year." 

May  I  be  permitted  to  trespass  a  moment  longer?  It  is  of 
the  Confederate  soldiers  in  peace  I  would  speak.  I  cannot — 
nor  would  I  if  I  could — portray  the  ceaseless  chain  of  wrong 
and  oppression  which  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  great 
"Civil  War;"  and  it  came  upon  a  defenseless,  desolated,  and  im- 
poverished land — a  land  rich  in  nothing  but  noble  men  and 
women  and  the  precious  memories  of  the  glorious  race 
from  which  they  sprung  and  in  the  priceless  heritage  of  high 
achievements. 

If  those  who  fell  in  battle  could  have  spoken  from  their 
graves,  they  would  scarcely  have  envied  the  fate  of  the  sur- 
vivors. 

Sir,  if  anything  exceeds  in  constancy,  in  patience,  in  cour- 
age and  fortitude,  the  Confederate  soldier,  who  from  1863 
to  1865,  half-clad,  hungry,  and  almost  without  hope  of  suc- 
cess, followed  with  weary  but  steady  footsteps  the  tattered 
battle  flags  of  the  South  until  the  star  of  the  Confederacy  went 
out,  it  was  the  same  soldier  who,  for  the  decade  that  followed 
the  war,  in  poverty  and  in  want,  disfranchised  and  despised, 
overrun  by  aliens  and  strangers,  steadily  and  with  a  sublime 
constancy  and  devotion  resisted  wrong  and  oppression,  turned 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


33 


his  back  upon  place  and  power,  while  ignorance  and  dishonesty 
held  high  carnival,  until,  by  the  very  logic  of  events,  reason 
supplanted  bitterness  and  passion,  ignorance  and  vice  gave 
way  to  intelligence  and  personal  worth,  and  his  long-deferred 
redemption  came. 

Did  any  other  people  ever  face  and  overcome  adversity  as 
did  the  Southern  people?  The  same  spirit  which  gave  her 
armies  unity,  power,  and  endurance  followed  the  survivors 
back  to  the  civil  life  to  point  the  way  to  a  new  birth  such 
as  no  other  country  has  ever  experienced.  The  South  gave 
to  her  armies  all  of  her  male  population,  including  beardless 
boys  and  gray-haired  men,  and  they  went  from  every  walk, 
profession,  and  calling  and  station  in  life.  Neither  the  bench, 
the  pulpit,  nor  the  institutions  of  learning  were  spared.  All 
answered  with  alacrity  and  determination  the  call  to  arms. 
When  it  closed  there  were  none  upon  whom  to  rely  but  the 
ex-Confederate  soldier.  He  it  was  who  took  up  the  new 
problems  which  the  changed  conditions  of  his  desolate  land 
presented.  Standing  by  the  graves  of  his  comrades,  inspired 
by  their  noble  deeds,  chastened  and  disciplined  by  the  hor- 
rors, self-denials,  and  sufferings  of  w^ar,  encouraged  by  the 
high  achievements  of  his  revolutionary  sires,  and  loving  to 
veneration  the  traditions  of  his  ancestry,  interwoven  as  they 
were  with  the  history  of  his  beloved  South,  undismayed  but 
hampered  by  the  prejudices  and  passions  which  war  had  left 
behind,  he  began  the  work  of  rebuilding  her  shattered  for- 
tunes and  rehabilitating  her  dismantled  commonwealths. 
But  as  the  South  had  fought  for  the  principle  of  local  self- 
government  and  failed,  so  in  the  disjointed  logic  of  the  times 
she  was  to  be  denied  its  application  in  the  reestablishment  of 
her  State  governments.  The  South,  yet  unadjusted  to  its 
changed  conditions,  struggling  under  its  burdens  of  misfor- 
tune and  impending  dangers,  misjudged,  misunderstood,  and 
mistrusted,  may  have  blundered  ni  many  things;  and  the  great 
North,  forgetting  or  ignoring  the  great  qualities — the  fidel- 
ity and  honor,  the  genius  for  constructive  statesmanship 
and  good  government  which  her  fallen  foe  had  always  ex- 
hibited in  war  and  in  peace — gave  rein  to  unrestricted  pas- 


34 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


sions  and  prejudices,  alike  harmful  to  itself  and  ruinous  to 
the  South. 

It  sent  the  carpetbagger,  who,  aided  by  those  who  had 
never  exercised  the  simple5,t  rights  of  citizenship,  were  ex- 
pected to  set  up  and  administer  such  governments  as  were 
fit  for  a  people  who,  for  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century, 
had,  in  the  main,  guided  and  directed  the  splendid  progress 
and  development  of  the  great  republic.  I  would  not  dwell, 
if  time  permitted,  upon  the  riotous  conditions  into  which  a 
helpless  and  defenseless  people  were  plunged  by  this  char- 
acterless horde  of  insatiable  cormorants  who  assembled  at 
our  State  capitals,  to  blaspheme  the  very  name  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, and  plot  schemes  to  oppress  a  fallen  foe,  that  they 
might  prolong  their  opportunities  for  peculation.  This  is 
not  the  time  nor  place,  but  it  must  be  left  to  the  future  his- 
torian, in  the  interest  of  truth  raid  as  a  lesson  to  posterity, 
and  as  a  warning  to  us  all  that  there  is  no  freedom  where 
one  man  is  permitted  to  govern  others  against  their  wills,  to 
drag  away  the  sheet  that  covers  the  rotten  corpse  of  re- 
construction. It  fell,  as  in  the  nature  of  things  it  could  not 
endure.  Time  gradually  assauged  the  passions  of  the  war; 
commerce  and  business  struggled  under  its  withering  in- 
fluences and  demanded  better  things;  and  the  conscience  of 
the  great  victorious  North  was  stricken  at  the  cruelties  and 
follies  and  ruin  it  wrought;  but  a  decade  had  passed,  a 
weary,  withering,  blighting  decade  of  misrule  on  the  one 
hand,  and  patient  endurance  and  long-deferred  hope  on  the 
ot-her.  Again  the  ex-Confederate  took  up  the  burden  of 
civil  government.  I  think  sometimes  we  forget  the  strong 
characters  of  those  who.  Moseslike,  led  us  out  of  the  wilder- 
ness of  our  woes.  Few  of  them  are  now  left,  and  their  faces 
recede  with  the  fljang  years. 

They  vv^ere  ex-Confederates,  true  and  tried.  Some  yet 
live,  and  to  call  names  would  be  invidious;  but  we  owe  them 
a  double  debt  of  gratitude,  and  ro  their  memories  reverence 
and  love. 

With  the  South's  overwhelming  problem  still  unsolved, 
she  has  nevertheless,  under  the  auspices  of  her  own  people, 
fallen  upon  safe  and  peaceful,  if  not  happy  and  prosperous, 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


35 


times.  Her  sons  and  daughters  have  resumed  their  right- 
ful station,  and  whatever  the  future  has  in  store  of  good  for 
her  must  rest  upon  the  traits  and  characteristics  of  her  peo- 
ple. She  will  be  patient;  she  will  be  prudent.  To  all  the 
knightly  and  queenly  virtues  she  will  hold  fast,  trusting  in 
God  and  the  future  for  the  noble  and  good.  The  South  will 
not  despair. 

I  read  the  other  day  in  one  of  Talmage's  sermons  these 
words:  "There  is  a  flower  in  Siberia  that  blooms  only  in 
January,  the  severest  month  in  that  cold  climate.  It  is  a 
star-shaped  flower,  and  covered  with  glistening  specks  that 
look  like  diamonds.  A  Russian  took  some  of  the  seeds  of 
that  flower  to  St.  Petersburg  and  planted  them,  and  they 
grew,  and  on  the  coldest  day  of  January  they  pushed  back 
the  snow  and  ice  and  burst  into  full  bloom.  They  called  it 
the  snow  flower;  and  it  makes  me  think  of  those  whom  the 
world  tries  to  freeze  out  and  snow  under,  but  who,  in  the 
strength  of  God,  push  through  and  up  and  out  and  bloom 
in  the  hardest  weather  of  the  world'j  cold  treatment,  starred 
and  radiant  with  a  beauty  given  only  to  those  who  find  life  a 
struggle  and  turn  it  into  victory." 

These  sturdy,  venerable  veterans,  bearing  the  scars  and 
wounds  of  battle  in  their  bitterest  days,  like  the  snow  flowers 
of  Siberia,  pushed  their  way  up  and  out  and  through  all  the 
ice  and  snows  of  the  cold  winters  of  adversity,  and,  thank 
God !  they  stand  for  all  that  is  strong  and  conservative  and 
safe  in  government.    Will  their  posterity  do  less? 

Providence,  as  a  kind  Father,  took  by  the  hand  our  liberty- 
loving  ancestors  and  guided  them  here.  Generation  after 
generation  lived,  ruled,  and  passed  away,  retaining  the  purity 
and  freshness  of  virtuous  power.  Greed  of  gain  and  lust 
of  power,  culminating  in  plutocratic  usurpation  of  all  the 
branches  of  government,  have  never  found  favor  or  encour- 
agement here.  Our  population,  Anglo-Saxon  still,  has 
never  been  dominated  by  foreign  elements  ignorant  and 
careless  of  the  principles  of  our  government  and  the  prac- 
tices of  our  fathers.  We  still  hive  our  splendid  inheritance, 
except  as  modified — let  us  believe  for  the  better — by  war. 

I  believe,  as  I  live,  that  if  our  institutions  are  to  be  pre- 


36 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


served  much,  so  much,  will  depend  upon  this  goodly  South 
of  ours.  Our  deepest  concern  should  be  for  a  better  and 
more  righteous  national  character.  All  the  bounteous  ele- 
ments of  earth  and  sky  beckon  us  away  from  the  base  fasci- 
nation of  pelf  which  dishonors  and  destroys  our  country. 

Let  us  invite  all  her  people  into  paths  of  law  and  order, 
inculcating  peace,  and  keep  alive  our  sense  of  justice  and 
human  freedom,  and  let  all  our  advancement  and  growth 
be  characterized  by  such  a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  man 
as  shall  make  her  people  feel  that  the  blessings  of  Provi- 
dence are  theirs  under  a  government  of  just  and  equal  laws. 

May  our  beloved  Southland  build  all  her  temples,  not 
upon  the  shifting  quicksands  of  selfish  expediency,  but  upon 
the  everlasting  principles  of  right!  Let  us  not  forget  that, 
in  the  great  armory  of  Divine  Providence,  Justice  forges 
her  weapons  long  before  her  battles  are  fought;  that  in  the 
everlasting  courts  of  heaven  every  man  must  suffer  the  pen- 
alties of  hi  5  disobedience,  and  all  nations  the  penalty  of  in- 
justice and  wrong.  Whatever  may  be  our  burdens  or  ca- 
lamities, let  us  bear  them  with  that  courage  and  fortitude 
that  becomes  a  just  and  a  great  people;  and  may  our  children 
and  our  children's  children  be  inspired  to  walk  along  the  very 
mountain  ranges  of  an  enlightened  Christian  civilization, 
alwa_ys  in  the  path  of  duty,  and  preserve  and  keep  sacred  the 
same  great  qualities  that  made  their  ancestry  respected  and 
beloved  of  mankind! 

A  Sketch  of  Judge  Rogers. 

John  Henry  Rogers,  soldier,  lawyer.  Congressman,  and 
jurist,  was  born  on  a  plantation  near  Roxobel,  Bertie  County, 
N.  C,  October  9,  1845,  the  third  child  of  Absalom  and  Harriet 
Rogers,  and  grandson  of  William  Rogers,  a  farmer  and  me- 
chanic, who  lived  and  reared  a  family  of  twelve  children  in 
Pitt  County,  N.  C.  His  father  was  a  wealthy  planter  before 
the  war,  but,  being  deprived  of  his  slaves  and  everything  but 
his  lands,  was  reduced  to  poverty  by  that  disaster.  In  1852  the 
family,  consisting  of  his  parents,  brothers,  and  two  sisters,  re- 
moved to  a  cotton  plantation  in  Madison  County,  Miss.  He 
attended  schools  near  his  home  until  1861,  and,  in  addition  to 


THE  SOUTH' VINDICATED. 


37 


the  ordinary  branches  and  a  Httle  Latin  and  Greek,  he  acquired 
some  proficiency  in  mih'tary  drill. 

This  accomplishment  he  made  useful  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  when  he  was  chosen  drillmaster  of  those  of  his  school- 
mates who  were  over  fifteen  years  of  age ;  and  in  the  following 
fall  he  acted  as  instructor  of  a  company  of  home  guards,  al- 
though most  of  its  members  were  between  forty  and  sixty  years 
of  age.  In  March,  1862,  he  was  mustered  into  the  Ninth  Reg- 
iment, Mississippi  Infantry,  at  Canton,  Miss.,  as  a  private. 
In  the  battle  of  Munfordville  (Green  River),  Ky.,  he  was 
wounded  while  charging  the  enemy's  breastworks.  He  was 
subsequently  in  the  battles  of  Murfreesboro  (Stone  River), 
Tenn.,  Chickamauga,  Ga.,  Mission  Ridge,  near  Chattanooga, 
Tenn.,  and  Resaca,  Ga.  He  was  in  the  engagements  before 
Atlanta,  July  26  and  28,  1864,  and  was  wounded  at  Jonesboro, 
Ga.,  in  September,  1864.  He  fought  at  Franklin,  Tenn.,  No- 
vember 30,  1864,  and  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  December  15,  1864. 
In  April,  [865,  although  but  nineteen  years  of  age,  he  was  pro- 
moted by  special  order  of  Gen.  Johnston  to  the  rank  of  first 
lieutenant,  and  he  commanded  Company  F  of  the  Ninth  Mis- 
sissippi Regiment  until  the  capitulation  of  Johnston's  army. 

Returning  home  by  foot,  about  one  thousand  miles,  he  be- 
gan reviewing  his  studies,  and  entered  Center  College,  Dan- 
ville, in  September,  1865,  and  the  University  of  Mississippi  in 
1867,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1868.  He  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  at  Canton,  Miss.  After  teaching  a  short  time,  he  be- 
gan his  legal  practice  at  Fort  Smith,  Ark.,  in  February, 
1869,  and  shortly  after  his  arrival  at  that  place  entered  the 
office  of  Judge  William  Walker.  From  1871  to  1874  he  was 
in  partnership  with  that  eminent  lawyer;  for  the  following 
three  years  he  practiced  alone,  and  then  for  five  years  served 
as  first  circuit  judge  of  the  Twelfth  Judicial  Circuit.  This 
office  he  resigned,  on  account  of  impaired  health,  in  May, 
1882,  and  in  the  following  November  was  elected  a  member 
of  Congress,  where  he  served  in  the  forty-eighth,  forty-ninth, 
fiftieth,  and  fifty-first  Congresses.  Throughout  his  public  ca- 
reer he  made  few  set  speeches,  but  worked  laboriously  on 
committees,  and  took  an  active  part  in  the  daily  proceedings. 
During  the  last  six  years  he  was  a  member  of  the  Judiciary 


MISS  'BESSIE  ROGERS. 

FORT   SMITH.  ARK. 

Daughter  of  Judge  Rogers,  and  who  was  Herald  for  Arkansas  Division 
at  New  Orleans  Reunion. 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


39 


Committee,  and  especially  devoted  his  energies  to  securing 
legislation  amending  the  criminal  laws  of  the  United  States, 
and  reorganizing  the  Federal  judiciary  system.  He  was  suc- 
cessful in  securing  the  writ  of  error  to  persons  convicted  of 
felony,  and  witnessed  the  creation  of  the  United  States  Cir- 
cuit Court  of  Appeals.  largely  the  outcome  of  his  own  per- 
sistent efforts  to  have  them  established  as  a  remedy  for  the 
congested  condition  of  the  business  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  bill  passed  was,  however,  only  a  modification  of  his  own 
plan  of  abolishing  the  Circuit  Courts,  and  making  the  District 
Courts  the  great  repository  of  original  jurisdiction,  civil  and 
criminal,  while  the  Circuit  Courts  of  Appeal  should  be  com- 
posed of  the  circuit  judges  then  in  office  and  two  others  to 
be  appointed.  Thus  a  stable  court  of  three  judges  would  be 
secured,  and  the  supreme  judges  relieved  of  all  Circuit  Court 
duty.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  would  be  a 
great  constitutional  court,  but  would  retain  limited  super- 
visory control,  as  before,  over  the  United  States  Circuit  Court 
of  Appeals,  to  the  end  that  harmony  of  decision  on  questions 
of  general  law  might  be  secured.  Such  an  arrangement  Judge 
Rogers  still  hopes  to  see  established,  and  is  encouraged  by  the 
fact  that  it  has  already  been  partially  adopted  in  the  Eighth 
Circuit,  where  four  circuit  judges  now  constitute  the  court. 
In  the  fifty-first  Congress  Judge  Rogers  came  prominently  be- 
fore the  public  as  the  opponent  of  the  Speaker,  his  speeches 
assailing  what  he  believed  to  be  the  arbitrary  and  oppressive 
conduct  on  the  part  of  that  official  being  published  by  the 
press  throughout  the  country.  Many  of  these  speeches,  in  their 
biting  satire  and  argument,  were  considered  masterpieces  of 
their  kind.  In  the  interest  of  his  constituents  he  secured,  while 
in  Congress,  the  passage  of  a  bill  donating  the  abandoned 
United  States  military  reservation  adjoining  the  city  of  Fort 
Smith  to  that  city  in  trust  for  the  public  schools,  which  have 
since  realized  a  munificent  trust  fund  from  this  source.  He 
also  secured  the  construction  of  a  handsome  public  building 
for  use  as  a  post  office  and  by  the  United  States  courts,  and  of 
a  commodious  prison,  while  through  his  efforts  a  United 
States  Circuit  Court  was  established  at  Fort  Smith  in  place 
of  a  United  States  District  Court  formerly  held  there,  which 


40 


THE  SOUTH  VINDICATED. 


had  Circuit  Court  powers,  and  exercised  jurisdiction  over  a 
part  of  the  State  of  Arkansas,  and  criminal  jurisdiction  over 
all  the  Indian  Territory.  Retiring  from  public  life,  after  the 
fifty-first  Congress,  Judge  Rogers  practiced  law  at  Fort  Smith, 
in  partnership  with  James  F.  Read,  until  November,  1896, 
when  he  was  appointed  by  President  Cleveland  successor  of 
Hon.  I.  C.  Parker,  late  United  States  District  Judge  for  the 
Western  District  of  Arkansas.  He  is  President  of  the  Board 
of  Education  of  Fort  Smith.  In  1895,  on  the  occasion  of  his 
delivery  of  the  annual  address  to  the  alumni  of  Center  Col- 
lege at  Danville,  Ky.,  that  institution  conferred  upon  him  the 
honorary  degree  of  LL.D. 

Judge  Rogers  was  married  October  9,  1873,  to  Mary  Gray, 
only  daughter  of  Dr.  Theodore  Dunlap  and  Elizabeth  Gray, 
of  Danville,  Ky.  Four  sons  and  one  daughter  are  living,  their 
first  child,  Theodora,  having  died  at  the  age  of  two  years. 


